Trending News: Gastronomy Tube Significant Predictor of Survival in Patients with MS

Patients younger than 50 years of age who are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and who have received a gastronomy tube to enable home enteral feeding (HEF) live longer than those older than 50 years of age, according to The American Journal of Managed Care. In a descriptive retrospective case note review, researchers evaluated medical records, HEF databases, and death certificates of patients with MS who received gastrostomy between 2005 and 2017 in Sheffield, England. The researchers found that being older than 50 years of age at tube insertion was the only significant predictor of shorter survival compared with duration of MS, gender, mobility, and other factors.

The CDC reports that during the week of February 3, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza stands at 7.1%, just below the epidemic threshold of 7.2%, according to Contagion Live. Recent estimates indicate that of the 22 million flu cases in the United States thus far in the flu season, there have been 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths. CDC officials continue to recommend vaccination as the best method to prevent influenza and reduce duration of illness.

A machine-learning model was proven effective in identifying patients with a high risk of in-hospital mortality, according to HCP Live. Analysts at Duke Institute for Health Innovation sought to prospectively and externally validate an artificial intelligence model to predict in-hospital mortality for all adult patients at the time of hospital admission. The findings supported the basis that machine-learning models could be used to predict in-hospital mortality and such software could be implemented on live electronic health record data.

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